Bad Camber need help

[85lebaront2]

He says that he's been running this kit for years, but the problems have come up in the last year. To me that says that wear is the problem, and that would include springs, spring bushings, and axle bushings. (He's replaced another wear item, the ball joints, apparently in an attempt to fix the problem.)

Looking at the illustrations and remembering how those things go together from Huck and Big Blue, I can't see the bushings causing that problem. Other problems, yes, but not negative camber. It looks to me like the geometry limits the source of that problem to be sagging springs.

However, we know that toe-in causes the opposite of this problem when the trucks are driven in reverse. What if the toe was set incorrectly so that the tires are pulling themselves into that position when driving forward? That doesn't really fit with the problem having come on gradually in the last year and an alignment having been done, but...

Gary, the camber bushings, the ones the upper ball joints go into, if installed wrong can cause the negative camber. The F250 (twin to Jim's truck except with A/C) had a problem on the left front, it was visibly in at the top like the pictured truck. When I did the described alignment tests and looked, the camber bushing I think said 4° on it, and was turned with the wider side toward the wheel. I turned it around, primarily to see if we could get an idea what bushing I would need to get for it. After reversing it and reassembling everything, recheck was dead vertical, toe, that's another story, it was about 1/4" toed in which explained the comment "When I stop on the roads (dirt, it was a BSA camp truck) I see two little piles of dirt at the front tires." After I finished we went out on the paved roads and centered on the crown, Dan (the camp ranger) took his hands off the wheel and the truck stayed straight as an arrow, before it would have headed for the ditch on the right side.